1 Missing plane: Australian authorities say the search area for the missing Malaysian airliner has shifted 680 miles to the northeast after new analysis of radar data suggested the plane flew faster than originally thought and used more fuel, which may have reduced the distance it traveled, Australia said Friday. The revised search area comes as the weather cleared Friday in the southern Indian Ocean to allow planes to hunt for fresh clues to the fate of the plane that disappeared on March 8.

2 Polio free:The World Health Organization formally declared India polio-free on Thursday, after three years with no new cases. It said the milestone means the entire Southeast Asian region, home to a quarter of the world's population, is considered free of the disease. Being declared polio-free once was considered all but impossible in a nation hobbled by corruption, poor sanitation and profound poverty. Polio is a vaccine-preventable disease that has been eradicated in most countries. But it still causes paralysis or death in some parts of the world, including Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Children younger than 5 are especially vulnerable to the disease, which is spread through contaminated water or food.

3 Polluted cities: Only three of the 74 Chinese cities monitored by the central government managed to meet official minimum standards for air quality last year, the Ministry of Environmental Protection said this week, underscoring the country's severe pollution problems. The dirtiest cities were in northern China, where coal-powered industries are concentrated, including electricity generation and steel manufacturing.

4 Political talks: The president of Colombia says Venezuela's government has accepted the political opposition's conditions for dialogue. The announcement Thursday is the first sign of compromise on the part of President Nicolas Maduro since a protest movement ignited across the country nearly three months ago. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said foreign ministers from three countries, which he did not name, were working out the terms of the talks. The oil-rich nation has been widely criticized for its harsh crackdown on opponents protesting inflation, crime and shortages. Clashes between protesters and loyalists have left at least 32 people dead.

5 Street births: Women's rights advocates sought international help Thursday in ending what they call a pattern of poor indigenous Mexican women being turned away from hospitals while in labor, forcing them to give birth on lawns, patios or parking lots. Activists working in villages in southern Mexico say they have documented at least 20 recent cases of women giving birth outside hospitals whose staff claimed there was no room.

6 Climbing guides: Struggling to cope with a crush of climbers and garbage on Mount Everest, Nepal is considering a proposal that would require every foreign climber to hire a local guide to ascend the country's highest peaks. The intention is to increase local employment in an industry that is increasingly reliant on foreign guides, officials said Thursday. The policy could also help avoid the kind of on-mountain disputes that led to a confrontation last year when three professional climbers from abroad told a group of Sherpas that they wanted to climb on their own.